


An Oldie but Goodie

by jayceepat (DecemberWine)



Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-02
Updated: 2011-02-02
Packaged: 2017-10-15 07:42:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/158596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DecemberWine/pseuds/jayceepat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tsunami wave of crime leaves the CSI lab overworked and exhausted.  But two examiner's finally examine their feelings for each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Oldie but Goodie

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first story I ever wrote. I was working a really hard assignment and I was beat. I decided to grab a quick nap and set my clock to wake up in two hours. When I woke up I heard a song being played on the radio. It was a slow blues number and the lyrics were 'Hold on, Rock me Baby...all night long'. I went back to work but the song stayed with me and just drove me crazy. I tried to look the lyrics up on Google but couldn't find them. I even called the radio station and asked the DJ to tell me what they were playing at 7:30am that morning. He couldn't find the program sheet.
> 
> The dancing really happened to me. I was working a computer install in a major hospital and we hit every problem that could occur. My staff and I had been working constantly under pressure for almost 40 hours. I went into our 'war' room to grab some coffee and a sandwich and Bob Segar's "Old Time Rock and Roll' was playing. I will never know why I did it but I grabbed my assistant and we started dancing. By the time the song was over, my whole staff was dancing to the music. About three hours later we got the last of the problems cleared up and the computer was ticking like a clock.
> 
> I never ever found the song and to this day I don't know if it's real or I dreamed it but this story was the result and it almost wrote itself.

It had been 3 weeks straight out of hell. If there was a crime, someone in Las Vegas committed it. The graveyard shift had been buried (so to speak) in bodies. They had floaters, decomp, human soup, parts; you name it. If there was a completely disgusting way for a human, or piece thereof, to be discovered, the members of the graveyard shift had caught it.

It had gotten so bad that Grissom’s office, which was usually off limits, had been made available, actually the couch in his office had been made available, and everyone, even the lab rats had been put on a schedule so they could get an hour or two of sleep when they were ready to drop. Between the couch in the break room, and Grissom’s nest and those who passed out on whatever surface was handy, they were just barely keeping their heads above water. The last time Greg had enough energy left to crack a joke, he had said that he was sure that Al and Super Dave were napping in the drawers down in the morgue.

Warrick just grunted something that might have been a laugh in a previous life and said “Nah, they’ve got customers lined up in the halls. If they’re usin’ a drawer, they’re sharing. It’s laying room only down there”.

Greg didn’t even remember his feeble attempt at a joke when someone put a hand on his shoulder and started shaking it, trying to wake him up. He squinted up and finally managed to focus enough to see Archie staring down at him. He hoped it was Archie, although if it was, he had aged 25 years in the last week. He had so many bags under his eyes, he would have been charged for overweight luggage at any airport.

Archie tried to smile but didn’t have the energy to turn up the corners of his mouth. “I’m sorry Greg. I really tried to hold out just a little longer but I’m going to hurl if I don’t lay down flat for a little while.”

“That’s OK, Arch. What time is it?”

"It’s about 5.30 am.”

“You should have got me up sooner, you’ve let me sleep almost 4 hours.”

“It’s OK. We all figured you were going to need a little extra before you tackled ‘trunk man’ and besides, you and Nick both are going to need lemons and we are all out.”

“Wait a minute, that’s not right. I can live with being so sleep deprived I can’t even look down Catherine’s blouse when it’s right there, but it’s inhumane to expect us to work on ‘human soup’ without something to get rid of the smell.” Greg was so upset he actually managed to get up without staggering.

Arch fell on the couch and managed to stay awake long enough to say, “Don’t get your tidy whities in a wad. Ecklie is arranging for every lemon within a 5 mile radius to report to the lab along with cans of tomato juice”

Greg yawned so big he cracked his jaw. “I’m not so sure that my tidies are white any more, considering how long I’ve been wearing them and why tomato juice?”

Arch fought back from the brink of sleep to crack one eye open and glare up at Greg. “TMI OK. Nick said that’s what they used to use on their dogs at the ranch when the dogs tangled with skunks and lost”.

Greg yawned again and said, “OK, but between lemons and tomato juice, I won’t be able to go near the produce aisles in the markets for a week without being attacked by a salad in the making”. It wasn’t a bad line for someone as tired as he was but it was wasted on Archie who was out. Greg looked down at his friend and carefully pulled off his shoes, swung his legs up on the couch and slipped a pillow under his head before he got himself ready and left the office, softly closing the door behind him. There was a list pinned to the outside of the door. Greg crossed his name off the list and added Archie’s, signifying that he was through with his ‘nap’ and Archie Johnson was now the rightful occupant of the couch.

Greg headed for the locker room. He had no more clean clothes but he had washed his underwear the last time he took a shower and had hung it over a makeshift clothes line that the girls had contrived from twisted crime scene tape. He was hoping they were dry enough to change into. Even if he didn’t have clean outer clothes, at least he could shower himself awake and if he had clean stuff against his body, he was hoping it would help somehow. By now he, and everyone else in the building, were grasping at straws, prayer, voodoo, yoga, deep-breathing exercises, you name it; anything to try to keep them going just a little longer.

His stuff was dry. He stripped and slipped into the shower; hot first to get the kinks out and then he would turn it down until it was almost ice cold when he got out. As he soaped first him and then his dirty underwear, he though about what Archie had said about Ecklie getting lemons and tomato juice delivered to the lab. Even Hodges, the most cynical soul to ever walk the hallowed halls of LVCL, had to admit that Ecklie had been almost human lately. He had arranged for a steady supply of bathing necessities, had built a fire under their laundry service so they had stacks of clean towels. He’d arranged for food to be brought in and had even authorized an unscheduled delivery from their vending machine service when it became obvious that the machines weren’t going to last. No one was even thinking the word “OVERTIME”.

The worst thing that had happened in all of the last 3 weeks happened about 12 hours ago, give or take an hour. It had nothing to do with the crimes, horrible as they were. It had been when Grissom had turned first red then grey, grabbed his head with both hands and slid down the wall in the hall. Catherine had been talking to him when it happened and she was screaming for help even as she caught him in her strong arms and gently went down with him.

By the time Greg, who was the 1st to reach her, had gotten to her side, she had his shirt unbuttoned, his glasses off and was using her bottled water to bath his forehead and neck. Greg in the meantime had his phone out and was calling 911 as he went down on his knees beside her to try to help his boss.

His 2nd call was to Doc Robbins who appeared almost immediately. Greg thought he had barely had time to flip his phone closed when Al was there beside him, using his shoulder to lower himself down to Grissom’s side. Greg jerked around and said, “Holy Shit, what did you do, beam yourself up?”

Al made everyone get back so he could see and Grissom could breath. By then Nick and Warrick were coming in through the front door and heard all the commotion. They froze for one split second when they saw their boss down but then went into action. They made everyone back way up. They knew that Grissom would not want to be the center of attention and for sure not when he was so defenseless. They turned their backs while Al completed his quick exam, Catherine helping him move and turn Gil when he asked. Greg had jumped up as soon as Nick and Warrick showed up, went to the locker room and got some clean towels and brought them back for Catherine to put under Gils head to make him more comfortable, then he went to stand beside Nick and Warrick. Grissom’s young Turks did the only thing they could to care for their mentor, supervisor and all round pain in the rear.

Just as the ambulance attendants were coming through the door, Al was telling them he didn’t think Gil was having a heart attack but his pulse was thready and way too fast. His breathing was labored and he didn’t seem to be seeing very well. Catherine refused to let Gil see her cry or become irrational but she looked across the form of her dear friend and silently mouthed the word “Stroke?” to her other friend. Al looked at her and for a brief moment went back 16 years to when he and Catherine, Jim and Gil were first becoming friends. He remembered thinking to himself that Gil and Catherine were two of the most beautiful examples of their species he had ever seen and had hoped for years that they would come together and love/comfort each other. It had happened, but not the way he had wanted. He snapped back to the present and said simply, “It’s possible”.

Catherine went with Gil to the ambulance and was about to get in when Gil grabbed her wrist and said, “No, you can’t be spared now. Go back.” Catherine almost lost her fight then, her eyes filling with tears.

She started to argue but Gil shook her wrist to get her attention. “You have to take care of them until I get back. Take care of my family and my lab; make sure everything is OK”.

Catherine looked down at him for a moment, then leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, called him a stubborn, old coot and told the EMT’s to get him to the hospital quickly but safely.

When she came back in there were no more tears, just a little smeared mascara (only Catherine would still have mascara on after all this time). She called out and told everyone in their respective lab’s to come to their doors. Nick, Warrick, Greg, Jim and Al were standing in the hall with Sara who had been working in one of the labs with earphones on and had not heard the noise.

When Catherine had everyone’s attention she told them as much as she knew. Al filled in as much of the medical detail as he could. Sara immediately started crying and demanding to be allowed to go to the hospital to be with Grissom. Catherine thought for a moment she was going to completely blow her and Grissom’s cover. Her attitude probably wasn’t over the top for a lover but for a subordinate having an affair with her supervisor, it was dangerous.

Oddly enough, Nick and Warrick were the ones who finally got through to her. They were tired, scared and angry and might have been a little more tactful under any other circumstances. They both told her off in no uncertain terms. When they got through with her, she was at least quiet enough for Catherine to tell her that Gil had specifically asked that everyone try to keep up with the unbelievable work load they were carrying and he would make sure that his doctors updated them just as soon as they had some real information. Al finished up by telling everyone that it wouldn’t matter whether they were working or at the hospital, Gil had at least 4, maybe 5 and possibly 6 hours of tests and examinations ahead of him and no one would be allowed to be with him during that time.

Everyone went back to work and the adrenaline jolt kept them all going for almost 6 more hours before they began to slump back into their, by now, normal state of exhaustion.

Just before Greg had collapsed on the couch, they had gotten word from the hospital that Grissom had not had a heart attack or a stroke although as high as his blood pressure was, that was a miracle. Even after all the work on him in the ambulance he still presented with 210 over 120. Al said his doctor told him he had buried patients with better blood pressure than that. Of course, Sara started again about how she should be there by his side and Al had to tell her, as tactfully as possible, that Gil was sleeping and no one except the person listed as his medical contact would be allowed to see him and they really didn’t even want the contact there because sleep was the number one medicine of choice at that moment. Sara demanded to know who his contact was so she could be put on the list. It turned out to be Jim Brass who told the young woman he would not add her until he had a chance to talk to Gil. Sara was furious, but she either had to go back to work or walk off the job and out of the lab permanently.  
======================================================================

Later, Jim and Catherine got a few moments to talk privately outside the lab. They both knew about Grissom’s relationship with his CSI and they were not happy about it. It had almost ruined the care and trust the 4 of them had built over the last 15 years. Grissom had never said a word, but Catherine and Jim were trained investigators, not too mention 2 of the few people who knew Gil Grissom well. They had both reached the same conclusion within days of each other only to find out that Al had had suspicions for longer than them. Jim had spent a couple of long strained weeks trying to keep Catherine from ripping Gil a new one. As a last resort, he asked her if she was jealous.  
*********************************** FLASHBACK ********************************

Catherine looked at him with complete shock.

“Did you just ask me if I was jealous of Grissom”. Her voice went up with each word until it almost squeaked on Grissom.

“Yeah, I did. Why are you so angry about this.”

“Well let me see; being told that because I had not told him that I had a drink with Adam Novak meant that he was now ‘behind’, could have been the start. Then his smug totally off the wall remark about people who live in glass houses should watch where they take their showers.”

“What the hell did that mean” Brass interrupted.

“Who the hell knows, but he finished the shift off by telling me, when I said I just wanted a little human companionship, “That’s why I don’t go out.” “Of course he doesn’t go out, he has his little CSI 3 to satisfy all his ‘human’ needs.” Oh I could just kill him”

“Hummmm, that sounds like jealousy to me.”

“Jim do you remember the movie star who killed the two girls in his hotel room?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, we got ripped to pieces by his defense attorney. She tore Sara a new one on the stand. She insinuated that the bra was moved on purpose because Sara was seeing Hank, the EMT who moved it and then she brought up the night that Sara wiped some chalk dust off Grissom’s cheek when they were looking for the body in the ‘Nose Palace’. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think they were seeing each other then and it was perfectly innocent, but when Sara took the stand, she was a CSI Level 3 with degrees and years of experience. When she left the stand, she was a pathetic, weak woman who would do anything a man asked her just to please him. Now just what do you think will happen to our cases if a hint of this does get out. Sara or Grissom will probably have to transfer and it could follow them both for years. I don’t want that for Gil.”

“What about Sara?”

“Sara is a co-worker and not my first concern. She’s not an easy person to be friends with.”

“Neither is Gil and yet you, me and Al have managed to do it for all these years.”

“Yes, but there is an inner sweetness to Gil that isn’t there in Sara; or at least there used to be”.  
********************************* FLASHBACK ***********************************

Greg finished his shower, wrung out his underwear and threw it over the ‘Crime Scene Clothes Line”. He dressed and headed down to the morgue to start on ‘trunk man’. He couldn’t imagine how Al did it; he was at least 25 maybe 30 years older than Greg but he looked better and more rested. He was doing a sort of little dance to music coming from the Bose radio he kept in the lab. Greg cocked an ear in the direction of the radio and heard a group he didn’t recognize sing something that sounded like “Hold On, take me in you arms and rock me baby, All night long”. Greg walked over and tapped Doc on the shoulder.

He swung around, grinned at Greg and said “You want to cut in?”

Greg had to grin back and said “Not to that old time stuff. I need some head banging to keep me awake. What station is that? “

Al hit a button and the music stopped and a CD popped out. “No station. Just some old songs I copied a while ago. I just happened to find it the last time I was home; when ever that was.” He handed the CD to Greg. “Here take it, give your ears a chance to listen to some real music for a change”.

Greg smiled and said “No thanks. It’s not my thing and even if it was, I have a date with ‘trunk man’ and I’m pretty sure neither one of us is going to be dancing”.

Al said, “Sorry to disappoint you. I know how much you’re looking forward to this BUT. We are full up, the machinery is about to fail and we have to hold up on everything until we can get a back up generator in here to keep the corpse’s fresh. Well as fresh as can be expected under the circumstances.”

Greg looked at Doc. “You do know that even thinking about ‘trunk man’ and fresh corpses in the same thought is wrong on so many levels I can’t begin to calculate the percentages.”

Al grinned and said “Whatever, just don’t come back until I page you. Oh and here, take this with you and listen to it”.

Greg went back to the lab, Lord knows he had plenty to do while he was waiting. He got the last tub of evidence on the floater that he and Nick got just before he was called away to ‘trunk man’. He decided that maybe Doc was right; perhaps he should try some oldies but not the stuff he was listening to. He found his CD of Guns & Roses, slipped it into his player and put the phones in his ears and started working.

Four hours later, he could say for sure that their floater was a suicide. His clothes were neatly folded on top of his shoes which had his socks firmly tucked inside. All the skin cells, all the evidence showed that the floater, Alan Wilson, had methodically removed and folded his clothes, carefully laying them on the edge of the dam while he removed his shoes and socks. He then placed his shoes side by side, put his clothes on top of them and jumped off the top of Hoover Dam. The memory chip Greg found in his shirt pocket turned out to be pictures of a neatly typed suicide letter detailing a history of depression, disappointments and disasters. The last one, an inoperable brain tumor was the final straw. Alan felt that life had treated him badly from the day he was born and this was the one and only thing he could control himself.

Greg was thrilled to wrap up something, anything and prayed that it was a sign of a break in the steady stream of death and disaster that had overwhelmed them for the last month. The odd thing was; normally, he could grove out to Axel and the boys but not tonight. Maybe he was just so tired that even music wouldn’t work anymore. It was weird though; he had a tune in his head and he was humming it under his breath. As soon as he realized he was humming, he stopped and lost the melody so he didn’t know what he had stuck in his head. He tried putting the headphones back on while he worked on the final report on Alan Wilson. He was looking for the last form he needed when he removed the headphones and suddenly realized he was humming “Hold on, take me in your arms and rock me baby all night long”.

He looked all over for Al’s CD before he found it in his own side pocket. He slipped it in his player just as Nick came into the lab. Nick looked bad and without thinking, Greg said so out loud.

Nick looked at him and just sighed, “Greg, I’d have to die to feel better right now.”

In times to come, long after this whole bad period was over, Greg still was never able to say why he did what he did. He hit the button that switched the music from headphone to audible and as the music started, he started singing with it. At first, just singing and then he turned to Nick who was standing there with a puzzled look on his face and started dancing over to Nick singing “Hold on, take me in your arms and rock me baby all night long”. He took Nicks hand and pulled him out into the room and started dancing with him. Nick was complaining loudly but Greg just kept singing to him and dancing with him until finally Nick started moving. He was hesitant at first, but then he gave in and let Greg and the music take over.

Wendy and Mandy were walking by and stuck their heads in to see what was going on. Greg grabbed Mandy and pushed her towards Nick while he took Wendy’s hands and began to dance with her. Warrick and Catherine came to see what was happening and Greg danced Wendy out into the hall, pushed her into Warrick’s arms, grabbed Catherine and began dancing with her. After he got the four of them going and noticed that Nick and Mandy had joined them out in the hall where they had more room, he traded partners with Warrick. By now Archie and Judy were dancing with them and finally, it looked as though everyone in the lab was in the hall dancing and singing ‘Hold on, take me in your arms and rock me baby all night long”.

All the death and horror and fear dropped away while they danced and changed partner’s and danced some more. As the music ended, they heard a throat being cleared. They looked up and saw Ecklie standing outside his office watching them. Visions of pink slips were floating in front of every pair of eyes in the hall.

Ecklie said, “I thought you would like to know that Gil is going to be fine. He will be back in the lab, strictly at his desk with no physical labor at all, at 10.00pm tomorrow night. His blood pressure went out of control due to no sleep, no food and no care for his own well being. That will have to change.” There were those who swore in later years that they saw him smile; a true, genuine smile as he added “Carry on.”

Maybe it was the good news about Gil, although Greg always swore it was the dancing that did it, but the tide began to turn. The cases began to slow down slowly at first but noticeably after the next 10 hours. Warrick, Nick and he got almost 3 full hours of sleep over that 10 hours. When he got the page from Al, he woke Nick and they headed for the morgue. He handled ‘trunk man’ while Nick took the body found after 3 days in a bathtub full of what had been scalding hot water. Nick never knew why Catherine looked at Sara and both said, at the same time, ‘Shirley Temple’ when he presented the case later.

Greg found eventually, that ‘trunk man’ was really ‘trunk woman’. She had been killed by a greedy grandson who couldn’t wait to get his hands on granny’s money. He was in such a hurry to get her in the plastic lined trunk and get it out of the house and over to a commercial storage unit that he didn’t notice he dropped his student id into the trunk as he was trying to cram the old lady in the confined space. Of course, a body in a plastic lined trunk in a tin storage shed in Las Vegas in summer turned to soup really fast, but the plastic laminate (which Granny had insisted he do) kept the card in good shape.

Nick’s body was a simple accident but by the time he proved it, he along with Greg, were ‘persona non grata’ big time. They went through a bag of the lemons that Ecklie had provided and 5 gallons of tomato juice each before they finally got out of their showers and decided that, while they looked a little odd (Greg’s hair was pink and Nicks looked like he’d had a really intense mahogany rinse) they could probably walk out in public without causing mass vomiting. Ecklie had gotten the laundry service to expedite a bunch of overhauls so they even had some clean clothes to wear home.

And out of every bad has to come some good. Their combined stenches made everyone stay way away from the locker rooms. So there was no audience at all when Nick walked over to Greg, pulled him into his arms and started swaying with him. When Greg was able to think again, he realized that Nick was singing softly in his ear, “Hold on, take me in your arms and rock me baby all night long”. Greg pulled back, looked Nick in the eyes and kissed him gently but thoroughly. When they finally broke for air, Greg took Nick’s face in his hands and said, “Would you settle for all day long?” He took Nicks kisses for an affirmative response.


End file.
